The Irish News
Allison Morris
It was the Omagh bombing - which claimed the lives of 29 people and unborn twins - that brought home the very real threat posed by armed dissident republican groups. The Real IRA was founded in 1997 by a number of Provisional IRA members opposed to the organisation's ceasefire - including veteran republican Michael McKevitt. However, before the August 1998 attack it had not been considered a serious threat to the fledgling peace process.
The bomb caused such public outrage that the organisation was pressured into calling a brief ceasefire and never recovered from the internal split caused by the aftermath of the disastrous town centre attack.
While still holding a small power base in the north west, the group's Belfast membership was completely "stood down" after being infiltrated by intelligence services.
A renewed campaign of violence in 2008 saw the gunmen of the Real IRA emerge, launching several failed murder bids on serving members of the PSNI.
Officer Ryan Crozier (27) narrowly avoided death when a booby-trap bomb exploded under his car close to Castlederg as he drove to start a shift at Enniskillen PSNI station.
The young constable is one of more than a dozen police officers who have managed to escape alive following botched murder attempts by dissident republicans.
Catholic probationary officer Jim Doherty (43) was the first officer to escape a murder bid in the renewed campaign of dissident violence in November 2007
After leaving his teenage son at Lumen Christi College Mr Doherty was shot in the arm and face with a shotgun as he sat in rush-hour traffic on Derry's Bishop Street.
Within days dissidents struck again in similar circumstances in what was seen as an attempt to dissuade Catholics from joining the police service.
Constable Paul Musgrave was sitting in traffic while off duty when he was attacked. He had just finished his shift in Dungannon, Co Tyrone, and was on his way to pick up his girlfriend from a nursery in the town when he was shot in the shoulder with a handgun during an attack by three masked men.
During the summer of 2008 eight officers were targeted in separate attacks.
In June two officers escaped injury when a landmine packed into creamery cans partially exploded as they drove past it on a rural lane in Roslea, Co Fermanagh.
Police in the border county were attacked again in August when three officers on a foot patrol in Lisnaskea escaped after an improvised rocket-propelled grenade was fired but failed to launch.
It was the first time that Semtex was used by dissidents in an attack.
Later that month a young woman had to leave her home in Derry following death threats by dissidents who had mistaken her for a senior police officer.
A few days later two officers were shot up to five times during violence in Craigavon.
While that shooting is now believed to be the work of Oglaigh na hEireann (ONH) the disturbances that occurred afterwards involved members of the Continuity IRA (CIRA).
The Independent Monitoring Commission describes the CIRA as being involved in intelligence-gathering and orchestrating public disorder.
The organisation came about following a split within the mainstream republican movement which culminated in a walk-out during the 1986 Sinn Fein Ard Fheis over a decision to take seats in the Dail.
In recent months there have been allegations that some Belfast members of the group are involved in racketeering and extortion.
The murders of two men - Joe Jones and Ed Burns - in March 2007 were carried out following an internal dispute between several members of the CIRA.
Despite recent targeting of security personnel, all killings by dissident republicans in the past 12 months have been civilians.
The most recent was Derry drug dealer Jim McConnell (38) who was gunned down in his Woodland Avenue home in the Waterside area of the city on Tuesday.
The INLA are believed to have carried out the killing as well as the attempted murder of his close associate Declan Gallagher in September last year.
Former Real IRA member Andrew Burns was also killed in February of last year by a breakaway Strabane organisation.
Pizza-delivery driver Emmett Shiels (22) was murdered in Derry in June in a killing which has been linked to elements within the INLA.
But it is ONH that reportedly represents the biggest threat to peace in the past 10 years.
The group has carried out 15 punishment-style shootings, mainly in west Belfast, and was responsible for a 300lb bomb abandoned on the outskirts of Castlewellan, Co Down.
It has also claimed a landmine attack in Jonesborough, Co Armagh, last September.
Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde has warned the level of dissident activity is now at its highest since 2002.
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